X-Book

The Shape of Bones

This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book.
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

Penguin presents the complete unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Shape of Bones by Daniel Galera, read by Charlie Anson.

From one of Brazil's foremost literary voices comes a gripping, visceral new novel about youth, power and the nature of manhood

A man rises at 5 a.m. and leaves his home. He does not wake his wife or child to bid them goodbye. He starts his car - an SUV filled with survival gear - but does not drive to his friend's house as planned. Instead he glides through the sleeping streets of Porto Alegre, haunted by ghosts of himself: the fearless boy riding a battered stunt bike, the silent adolescent fascinated by bodies and violence, the obsessive young surgeon, the distant husband.

As the dawn comes on and people slowly fill the streets, the man drives unthinkingly, inexorably, toward the old neighbourhood of his youth. What is pulling him back there? Perhaps the need to make something happen, perhaps just nostalgia. Or perhaps the search for absolution - from a crime he has carried in his heart for fifteen years.

Critics Review

Impressive, visceral and tender . . . A work of art whose echoes persist long after the final page
Masterful, compelling and stylish . . . Galera draws so much life into a single line, leading beyond the pages of the book and out to the horizon
Barney Norris, author of 'Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain'
Ferociously intelligent... A tense, atmospheric meditation on the hypnotic pull of the past. Daniel Galera is a thrilling writer, and this novel is nothing short of essential
Laura van den Berg, author of 'Find Me'
Publisher's description. A visceral coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violence and turbulent desire in the blistering Brazilian suburbs. Taut with the threat of sex and savagery, this is a book about bodies and their limits, about how it feels to be young and what it means to become a man.
Penguin
Vividly radiates a sense of unease and menace. I found myself constantly absorbed by it
New Statesman on 'Blood-Drenched Beard'
Coolly seductive, expansively mythic, with an unsettling sense of something indefinably out of joint beneath a veneer of small-town normality. . . . A tensely atmospheric novel [with] a dangerous undertow
Guardian on 'Blood-Drenched Beard'
Author Daniel Galera
Narrator Charlie Anson
Duration 5 hours and 10 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9780241981559
Format Audiobook
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Genre Fiction in translation, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Coming of age, Narrative theme: Sense of place
Availability AU, GB, IE

More from the same

Narrator

About xigxag

xigxag is an independent, UK-based audiobook platform and the UK’s only B Corp certified audiobook company. We offer nearly 150,000 audiobooks, all with professional human narration. No AI-generated voices. xigxag is rated an Ethical Consumer Best Buy for audiobooks and a top-rated ethical bookshop.

There is no subscription. You buy the audiobooks you want, you own them permanently, and prices start at £8.99. The more you listen over the year, the less you pay per book, and there is always a selection in Listen for Less from £3.99. You can also send audiobooks as gifts using our audiobook gift cards or in-app gifting.

Every audiobook on xigxag has honest reviews covering both the book and the narration, and our community features make it easy to share what you are listening to, discover what others recommend, and find your next listen.

Download or stream on iOS, Android, or in your browser. Browse the full catalogue at xigxag.co.uk.